


On Ilkley Moor

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Other, Supernatural Elements, gruesome folk song lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson recounts the strange events surrounding the theft of the Byron diamonds - but only in the privacy of his journal. There are some mysteries that even Holmes cannot help solve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Ilkley Moor

**Author's Note:**

> This was a promptfill story for spacemutineer, who generously donated to the Help_Japan effort. It wound up being the closest I'll likely ever come to writing a songfic. The song in question is an old Yorkshire folk-ballad, roughly the equivalent of the American "the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out." 
> 
> There's injury, folk-song, and questionable supernatural elements in this story. There's also a distinct lack of mystery or typical plot. If these aren't your thing, this might not be the fic for you.

** Whear ‘ast tha bin sin’ I saw thee? **

**             On Ilkley Moor bahn ‘at? **

** …Tha’s been a-courtin’ Mary Jane… **

 

_From the diary of John H. Watson, MD:_

_I will never write up the case of the Byron diamonds. As Holmes himself said, it proved to be the most humdrum affair, with hardly any points of interest even to the scholar of criminal detection, much less the audience for my “romantic tales.” But far more interesting to me, personally, is the story of our ill-fated journey to the scene of the crime…_

_  
_

A jaunty, morbid melody wound through my addled mind.

** Whear ‘ast tha’ bin since I saw thee? **

** On Ikley Moor bahn ‘at? **

** Where ‘ast tha’ bin since I saw thee? **

** Where ‘ast tha’ bin since I saw thee? **

** On Ikley Moor bahn ‘at, On Ikley Moor bahn ‘at, On Ikley Moor bahn ‘at… **

_Where had I heard such a thing?_ I wondered.

“John.” Mary’s voice came to me, affection and exasperation mixed equally. “You must wake up.”

“Just another minute, Mary,” I mumbled, trying to chase down the memory of the melody. It had been the children in that little village on the edge of the moor, I remembered. I had wanted to ask what ‘bahn ‘at’ meant, but Holmes had been in a hurry to secure directions to Byron Manor and drive on while we still had light…

_Holmes!_

My eyes flew open.

 

_Even now, the remembrance of that awakening sends chills through me. It easily stands as one of the worst of my life, along with the grim awakenings on the retreat from Maiwand, the awful days in hospital, the morning after Reichenbach, the dawn after my Mary…_

_Mary._

_I would swear that I heard her voice, there on the moor, rousing me back to consciousness. Back to Holmes._

 

** …Tha’s bahn t’catch thy death o’ cold… **

** …Then we shall ha’ to bury thee… **

I lay in a mass of grass and heath. I sat up, only to fall back as pain stabbed through my head and my left side. I touched my face and felt blood, sticky and warm. _What had happened?_

Memories returned, scattershot and incomplete. Holmes driving us across the frozen hills of the moor…a cracking sound…terror…then nothing. I forced myself upright despite the pain, desperate to find some sign of my friend. The first thing I saw was the wreckage of our cart scattered in pieces on the slope. And lying halfway down the hill – a familiar, too-still, tweed-clad figure!

 

_I cannot now recall how I made my way to his side. Certainly it must have been painful; the gash in my left side where a branch had ripped open my flesh was still bleeding, and my whole body was a mass of bruises. But none of that made an impression on my conscious mind. All that mattered was Holmes, lying unmoving and bleeding on the heath._

 

** …Then t’worms’ll come and et thee oop… **

** …Then t’ducks’ll come and et th’ worms… **

The cart-horse was dead, but thankfully my friend still breathed. A large gash marred his forehead, and blood from his lacerated scalp soaked into both our clothes as I cradled him in my lap. Finally his eyes opened, foggy with pain. “Watson?” he croaked.

“Thank God,” I breathed. “Holmes, can you move?” Night was upon us, and we needed shelter and a place to treat our wounds – but I could not carry him alone, not as I was.

Holmes blinked and flexed his limbs cautiously. “I believe so.”

“Then try to stand.”

He did, only to cry out in pain.

 

_I could not tell if Holmes’ ankle was broken or merely badly sprained, not without removing his boot, which I preferred not to do. The shattered remnants of the cart were either too large or too small to be effective as splints, and the scrubby growth on the moor (my injury notwithstanding) too flimsy to provide any better support than the tightly-laced leather._

_Holmes’ naturally-pale face turned nearly white as I helped him to stand the second time, but he gamely tried a step, and then another. “I think I might be able to walk as far as the farmhouse we passed, with your assistance.”_

_I dared not think of what other injuries he might have, and what such a walk might do to them. “It is my greatest joy and privilege to serve you,” I said instead, “even if it is merely as your walking-stick.”_

_I rejoiced to see him smile at my weak sally, but I knew he was far from well. The keenest observer in London had utterly failed to notice or remark on the blood that matted my hair and stained my left side._

 

 

“Steady on, Holmes. Keep leaning on me.”

“Watson.” I couldn’t see my friend’s face in the darkness, but I could hear the weakness in his voice and sense the tremors wracking his frame. “This is futile. You must leave me and go for help on your own.”

“Nonsense.” I knew as well as he that I’d never find him again in the dark mists of this blasted heath. I ignored my own injuries and tightened my hold on him. A second gleam of light joined the first in the distance, giving me a much-needed injection of hope. “We’re nearly there.”

 

_The walk seemed to last forever. Time and again Holmes faltered, his indomitable will nearly outmatched by his injuries. But I have a will, too, and I lent every ounce of dogged determination I possessed into coaxing him on, long past the point where I myself would have dropped._

_Mary always said I had more stubbornness than sense._

 

** …Then we shall go and et th’ ducks… **

** …Then we shall ha’ etten thee… **

Cold, injury, and exhaustion took their toll on me as well as Holmes. My mind had started to wander, narrowing down to the simple, mechanical task of setting one foot in front of the other, and ensuring that Holmes stayed with me.

A strange hissing noise roused me from my walking trance. Startled, I glanced up and saw geese and ducks in a pen. The largest goose raised its head and honked a challenge, echoed by its flockmates.

A nearby door opened, and a figure appeared, a growling dog at its side. “Wha’s all this?”

My vision narrowed. “Help us...”

 

_I vaguely remember the good farmer and his wife assisting us into their cottage. I do recall that I would not let go of Holmes, not until we were both inside, and my friend himself encouraged me to loose my grip. His voice was echoed by a concerned, sweetly-feminine tone, one I thought I knew. I cannot say which of the two I eventually obeyed. Perhaps it was both._

_I let go and dropped into the dark._

 

** …There is a moral to this tale… **

** …Don’t go a-courtin’ Mary Jane… **

We must have given that poor couple quite the scare, Holmes and I. But they cared for us both unstintingly and unquestioningly, tending our wounds, warming us in front of the fire, and eventually bundling us both into their one bed. Or so Holmes told me, for I remembered nothing after crossing their threshold until I woke at his side the next morning.

“You should have left me,” he chided. “You were hardly well enough to walk on your own, much less support me.”

I shook my head. “I never would have made it by myself,” I told him truthfully.

 

_Did I hear my Mary?_

_This is not a mystery I can ask Holmes to help me solve._

_I know Death courted me that day, as she has done before, and will undoubtedly do so again. One day she will woo me successfully, but she did not win this round, and I believe I know why. Here in the privacy of this journal, I will swear that I _did_ hear Mary out on the moor, and later at the cottage, and again in the strange dreams I had before waking that morning. Our accident occurred on the very anniversary of her death. I believe she reached out to me, saving my life (and Holmes’ life, too) as I could not save hers. She could have called me to her, added her voice to Death’s, and I would have gone. Instead she sent me back, to continue my life here with my dearest Holmes and the work that we do._

_I like to think that this is so, and that she watches over the both of us, and smiles._

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted April 3, 2011


End file.
